Terror attack has scuttled Nevadan's Navy career
The Navy gave Cmdr. Kirk Lippold a medal for saving the USS Cole and preventing further loss of life after al-Qaida operatives blew a huge hole into the guided-missile destroyer in the Yemen port of Aden on Oct. 12, 2000. Little did Lippold know then that his fast-track career might be over.
Lippold, a 1977 Carson High School graduate, apparently is the first commissioned military officer or civilian official since George W. Bush became president to be held liable for failing to prevent an act of terrorism against the United States, according to the Sacramento Bee.
Well, if he cruised into that port ignoring all the warnings . . . oh, wait.
But there are questions why Lippold didn't know, before his refueling stop in Yemen, that two separate intelligence programs had found signs of a possible attack on U.S. interests in the Middle East in the days before the Cole bombing.
One of them, a secret Pentagon program now known as Able Danger, had identified Yemen as one of five "hot spots" of al-Qaida activity believed to be targeting U.S. interests. Two days before the Cole attack, Able Danger analysts briefed Gen. Peter Schoomaker, then head of U.S. Special Operations Command, on their findings.
Nothing about the briefing reached Lippold. Nor was he told that U.S. embassies in Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East had been closed for fear of violence.
How does the Commander of one of our ships in that area miss out on this kind of information?
How about a breakdown of communication, the kind that's bit us in the ass before?
Lippold's adherence to security procedures was questioned, but the report was dismissed by his entire chain of command, "finding that he could not prevent the bombing." Unfortunately, the taint still hangs on his career.
I can appreciate the idea of constant vigilance. If you're heading into a foreign port and you have your pipes exposed (so to speak), you probably have to keep an eye on the locals. But if Lippold had seen that briefing, it stands to reason that a routine refueling would have been treated as less of a routine.
What's the capper, though?
Meanwhile, promotions and honors have flowed to higher-echelon figures such as Gen. Peter Schoomaker, who did not act on the intelligence briefing he received two days before the Cole attack. Schoomaker has been promoted to Army chief of staff.
Scapegoating. What a lot of crap.
3 comments:
First, how could Lippold know of the impending danger if he never was privvy to the briefing? And what do you think would have happened to his career if he had decided to NOT put in in Yemen? He would have been severely criticized for wimpy-ness, or worse, downright cowardice in the face of POSSIBLE danger. Damned if you do damned if you don't. 20/20 hindsight by armchair generals. It is indeed a big pile of bullshit that his carreer is being backburnered like this.
Second, as a member of the army (a branch of the military on the LAND...) what was Schoomaker supposed to do with the info in the briefing? Was he supposed to go marching off into a sovereign foreign country trying to round up terrorists that haven't done anything yet?
I don't think it necessarily fair that Schoomaker and Lippold be held up to the same criticism like that. Lippold could have done something with the information, if he had received it. Schoomaker couldn't have done a damned thing with it even if he wanted to.
Thing is, Schoomaker was briefed and if he was in charge of that particular theatre, all officers in the area should have had the information in their hands.
I'm not holding Schoomaker responsible. But he is more culpable than Lippold. And Lippold is the one being punished.
Wow, that seems like a heck of a bum rap.
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